Should Anyone Believe Bibi?

“I want a sustainable, peaceful two state solution.” —Benjamin Netanyahu, in English, to Andrea Mitchell, March 19, 2015

“I think that anyone who moves to establish a Palestinian state and evacuate territory gives territory away to radical Islamist attacks against Israel.”
—Benjamin Netanyahu, in Hebrew, to Sheldon Adelson-owned, pro-settler website NRG, March 16, 2015

“I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.” —Benjamin Netanyahu, in Hebrew, at a press conference, July 13, 2014

“There was never a government discussion, resolution or vote about the two-state solution.” —Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon, to The Times of Israel,June 6, 2013

“Vice Premier Moshe Ya’alon [of Netanyahu's Likud party] ruled out the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel in a speech at a cultural event on Saturday afternoon in the South Sharon Regional Council.”
—Jerusalem Post, January 12, 2013

“Likud’s platform to date has not recognized the establishment of a Palestinian state.” —Likud official to Haaretz, December 25, 2012

“This government is not interested in solving anything with the Palestinians, and I say this [with] certainty.” —Yuval Diskin, director of the Israeli Internal Security Service (Shabak) under Benjamin Netanyahu from 2009 to 2011, April 28, 2012

“He doesn’t support [a Palestinian State]. He supports [proposing] the sorts of conditions that they [the Arabs] will never accept.” —Benzion Netanyahu, father of Benjamin Netanyahu, in Hebrew, July 9, 2009

“We are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state." —Benjamin Netanyahu, in Hebrew, Bar Ilan University, June 14, 2009

“Two states for two peoples is a stupid and childish solution to a very complex problem.” —Ron Dermer, senior aide to Benjamin Netanyahu, May 21, 2009

“His [Netanyahu’s] opposition to a Palestinian state is also a matter of principle, one he has held for many years.” —Aluf Benn, editor, Haaretz, March 1, 2009

“All of us saw Bibi as a kind of speed bump that would have to be negotiated along the way until a new Israeli prime minister came along who was more serious about peace.” —Aaron David Miller, Clinton administration deputy special Mideast coordinator, The Much Too Promised Land, 2008

“He could open his mouth and you could have no confidence that anything that came out of it was the truth.”—Former Clinton administration press secretary Joe Lockhart to Clayton Swisher, The Truth About Camp David, 2004

“I do not believe such a [Palestinian] state is a historic imperative, any more than the triumph of socialism—which leftist parties once touted as inexorable—was such an imperative. Nor do I think Israel can achieve peace only by establishing a Palestinian state. On the contrary, I am convinced that such a state will endanger Israel and cause war.” —Benjamin Netanyahu, The Jerusalem Report, May 24, 1999

“Not only do members of the Clinton administration, Arab heads of state, some of Israel’s security chiefs, President Weizman, Knesset members across the spectrum and even cabinet ministers consider him [Benjamin Netanyahu], to put it mildly, disingenuous, but so too does much of the Israeli public” —David Horowitz, The Jerusalem Report, August 17, 1998

“To subdivide this land into two unstable, insecure nations, to try to defend what is indefensible, is to invite disaster. Carving Judea and Samaria out of Israel means carving up Israel.” —Benjamin Netanyahu, A Place Among the Nations, 1993

“The stumbling block to the road for peace is this demand for a PLO state. ... When this demand is abandoned we can have real and genuine peace.”
—Benjamin Netanyahu (then known as Benjamin Nitay), in English, 1978

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Peter Beinart is a contributing editor at The Atlantic and an associate professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York.